On a magic carpet ride from Lisbon to the edge of the Sahara, from Paris to the south of France and Algiers, Robert takes us to the places where the Nobel Prize-winning author, in ways still scandalous to modern sensibilities, lived out his unconventional ideas about love, marriage, sexuality and religion.
Featuring meditations and conversations with fellow travellers on such diverse subjects as why we travel, growing old, illicit passions, and the essence of Protestantism - and illustrated with over 100 stunning illustrations and photos - Arabesques is Robert Dessaix and travel memoir at their absolute finest.
Robert Dessaix is a writer, interviewer, translator and broadcaster. From 1985 to 1995, after teaching Russian language and literature at ANU and UNSW, he presented the weekly Books and Writing program on ABC's Radio National. His best-known books, published around the world, are the autobiography A Mother's Disgrace, the novels Night Letters and Corfu, a collection of essays and short stories (and so forth) and the travel memoir Twilight of Love. He has also published translations of works by Chekhov, Dostoyevsky and Turgenev.